Tax Strategies

Tax research and software provider RIA has upgraded its proprietary Checkpoint service to include expansion of user access to BNA content, international standards and titles from sibling Thomson company PPC.

The just-released Winter 2005-2006 issue of the Statistics of Income Bulletin discloses that adjusted gross income rose in 2004 for the second year in a row, increasing by 8.9 percent to $6.8 trillion. The largest component of AGI, salaries and wages, increased 6.0 percent to $4,977.9 billion, while net capital gains rose 53.2 percent to $442.1 billion. Taxable income increased 10.6 percent to $4.6 trillion.

H.R. 5114, the Tax Return Choice Act of 2006, was introduced in the House and referred to the Ways and Means Committee.

The Internal Revenue Service is looking to fill six vacancies on its Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee beginning in September.

A federal judge upheld a 1976 ruling and ordered the Internal Revenue Service to release detailed statistics on how the agency enforces the nation's tax laws to Susan Long, a Syracuse University professor and co-director of the non profit research group, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

An analysis of the Internal Revenue Service's 2003 figures show that President Bush's tax cuts on investment income have had a major effect on citizens in the upper tax brackets.

Although the Internal Revenue Service is cajoling taxpayers to file their returns electronically -- in a move designed to save the Treasury billions of dollars -- at least one top IRS official copped to submitting her return on paper.

In a limited study, the Government Accountability Office said that paid tax-return preparers at 19 chain operations returned less-than-stellar service.

Intuit Inc. has sued H&R Block Inc. for copyright infringement, alleging that Block's television spots echo Intuit's promotions for its market-leading TurboTax software.

Failed gubernatorial candidate George Henry "Nick" Jesson, who ran on a strident anti-tax platform, has been sentenced to 27 months in federal prison for tax fraud and ordered to pay $215,454 in restitution.